Poland will get a further four years of centre-right rule after the governing party cruised to an easy victory in parliamentary elections.

With 99 per cent of the votes counted from Sunday's election Civic Platform, the party of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, holds a commanding nine per cent lead over nearest rivals, the socially conservative Law and Justice, with 39.19 per cent.

The result means that Donald Tusk will become the first Polish prime minister to serve consecutive terms since the end of communism in 1989.

"I want to thank Poland, the Poles and God," Mr Tusk told ecstatic party members. "We have done great things, and now we have the opportunity to do even greater things." The prime minister later met President Bronislaw Komorowski, the Polish head of state, and is expected to be formally charged with the task of forming a new government.

Civic Platform's win fell short of an absolute majority, and it looks as if the party will have to maintain its current coalition agreement with the small Polish People's Party, which took 8.36 per cent of the vote. But the prime minister is expected to make changes to the make-up of the government before putting it to parliament for approval The election result came as a bitter blow to Law and Justice, led by former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. It is the third consecutive time the party has suffered a mauling at the hands of Civic Platform, and the defeat has raised question marks over Mr Kaczynski's leadership.

The result also cast the left wing Democratic Left Alliance into the doldrums. The successors of Poland's old communist party, the Alliance was once a dominant force in Polish politics but it now has to contemplate life on the political sidelines after scooping just 8.25 per cent of the vote. end